


Rangers - Episode One

by LordShaper85



Series: Rangers [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:44:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordShaper85/pseuds/LordShaper85
Summary: A decade after the fall of the Jedi order and the birth of the Empire, the Outer Rim is a hiding place for many - including what remains of the Antarean Rangers. Once a volunteer paramiliatry organization dedicated to aiding the Jedi, they have for ten long years been doing their best to oppose the Emperor's hunt for Force-sensitives as well as trying to protect the Jedi legacy from being completely destroyed by Imperial propaganda.Rangers follows the adventures of a Ranger unit, commanded by a Force-sensitive, as they do their best to not only survive but win against the darkest and most dangerous enemy: the Imperial Inquisition...





	Rangers - Episode One

**Rangers**

**Episode One**

**Outer Rim**

**One year after the Fall of the Republic**

**The Jedi Purge**

 

"And what is this," the Hunter said with a grin, "another youngling for the collection?" His eyes no doubt kept track of every minute twitch of Korias' face and body--and there were many. The old Jedi Master was at his end and he knew it well; exhausted from the day's incessant battle and with poison wracking his body from within, it took every last ounce of strength and willpower the Zabrak could muster just to stay on his feet. The encounter he had dreaded for weeks had finally come: the Jedi Hunter stood in front of him, weapon drawn and ready.

The child took a step forward, out of cover provided by Korias' right leg. Korias reached and pushed the child back, felt the tingling of the Force within the little one. So young, so full of potential--a flickering candle about to be snuffed out unless Korias...

Unless Korias what? What could he do? The lightsaber weighed a ton in his trembling hand. His right leg was pulsating where the dart had pierced both the armor and the skin--he could feel the wound slowly grow larger and ragged as the toxins destroyed flesh and worked their way to the bone. His vision now blurred at the edges and his head was growing number with every breath. He had minutes at most before the poison reduced him to a quivering, agonized pile on the ground with death only moments away. He took comfort in the certainty that this, at least, would not happen: the Jedi Hunter would end his life before the poison does.

If only he could somehow save the child before dying. What the Hunter would most likely do to her... Or perhaps even deliver her to the Sith that now ruled this monstrous Empire... Could he... Could he spare her that pain and terror? She was so fragile, he could reach and--

Terror screamed through him like lightning. _What--what am I thinking?!_

"Well, Jedi, any last words of comfort for your padawan?" The Hunter's face split into an even wider grin. It seemed to Korias as if the Hunter's head completely lacked muscles, was just leather stretched taut over a long, angular skull. "Any lies?" the Hunter growled suddenly, baring his teeth, malicious fire in his eyes.

For a split second, Korias considered begging for the child's life. But only for that long and only because poison and the inevitability of death made him hope, for just a moment, that he would find a shred of mercy in the Hunter. Then he relaxed his grip on the lightsaber hilt.

"You may say goodbye to her", the Hunter said, grinning mockingly and gesturing theatrically. He even took a step back. He knew that single step would make no difference. The outcome was certain for a long time now; all that was left was for them to go through the motions.

Korias could hear the distant sounds of approaching aerial transports, the roar of engines interspersed with the rattling and crackling of anti-aircraft fire and detonations of air-to-ground missiles. He reached out with weakening senses, used the Force to sharpen and extend them. Yes, it was the reinforcements. Antarian Rangers, an hour too late to save the city, ten minutes too late to save the last resistance unit--Korias' unit--but maybe just in time to save the child.

"Korias?" The voice was soft, trembling but doing its best to appear strong and brave. Korias only then realized that he did not know the girl's name. He had sensed her in the burning building, had rushed in to save her--pursued by droids--and had been carrying her and running from the hunter-seekers for the past two hours or more. How did she know his name? She must have heard it from one of his fighters--all dead now. The entire resistance contingent defending the city from the Repub-- _Imperial_ \--army, now reduced to a single, old Jedi Master, being eaten from within by a traitor's poison and soon to fall under the blade of a sadistic Jedi slayer.

"Girl, what is your name?" Korias spoke softly. Her eyes reflected the light of the burning city. Her light pink skin now seemed darker, bruised in the murk that surrounded them. "Nayla," she said.

"Pretty name, Nayla," he said and saw her smile. "Nayla," he whispered, "you know what I am." She nodded. "You know what you are?" She nodded again. "I felt you too," she said.

He felt his gut squirm and something sharp stab his lungs. He wheezed and felt her tiny hands grab his thigh, panicked. "It's okay, Nayla, it's okay," he lied. The sounds of transports were close, breaking through the last barrage of detonations. She could make a run for them, he only had to give her a chance. _Only_ , he thought.

"Nayla," he whispered. "Grab the communicator from my belt and run as fast as you can back the way we came. The transport will find you."

He felt tiny hands pick the device from the back of his belt. In front of him, the Jedi Hunter sneered, his eyes fixed, for a moment, on the incoming vessels. Did he only now notice them? "I am afraid I will be cutting your parting words short, Jedi." He made a flourish with his weapon.

"Korias..." the little quavering voice said as the Jedi felt the child move away from him.

"Goodbye, Nayla," Korias said as he took a step forward, taking a defensive stance.

"She won't escape me, you know that?" the Jedi Hunter said laconically. He moved forward as pain lanced through Korias' gut. "Let's get this over with," the Jedi master sighed softly and charged.

In those last moments, the old Zabrak took pleasure in the expression on the Jedi Hunter's face: the killer really did not expect his old and mortally wounded prey to charge. But it bought a few precious, crucial seconds for Nayla, Korias hoped.

And then their weapons struck one against the others, the lightsaber hummed and cracked and there was only the duel, short and savage and then the pain ended.

 

***

 

**Outer Rim**

**10 years after the Fall of the Republic**

Nayla stood in the doorway, the short corridor extending ahead of her, ending with another door. She listened, the way only she of her entire unit could listen, reaching with her senses behind that other door. Vague impressions, as always: a room, not that larger than the one her unit currently stood at the ready in; but more importantly there _were_ people in there.

Next to her, Zynn worked on his scanner, grumbling softly to himself. She looked over his shoulder at the device's screen, which showed the outline of the corridor ahead and several fuzzy blobs of dark red.

"So?" she asked. Zynn glanced at her, crouching and gave her the eyebrow.

"A moment, I told you," he said. He nodded at the closed door ahead. "How many?"

"I'll need to get closer," Nayla said.

"Are the children in there?" a voice asked behind her. She half turned and regarded the rest of her unit. All five of them had that relaxed but ready stance she had never managed to attain in combat. Weapons at the ready, two of them watched the only entrance into the storage unit, a wide door some ten meters away, and the other three were looking at Nayla and Zynn, waiting for the next part.

"Yes," Nayla said. That much she could discern even from this distance. It wasn't hard: the terror was like a beacon.

Her unit members nodded softly, their faces now a little grimmer.

"Here we go", Zynn said. Nayla looked at his scanner's screen as the man rose and saw the red blobs resolve into circles, marking out the security devices protecting the corridor.

"Two pressure plates, one motion detector, one heat sensor," Zynn said, mostly to himself.

"How long?" Nayla asked him.

He stepped into the short corridor, saying, "It'll take longer if you keep asking me questions."

Nayla rolled her eyes but also shared a smile with the rest of her unit.

Latura and Soval stepped forward when she motioned for them to do so, taking up positions at each side of the doorway, in case Zynn needed covering fire.

"Wee-Go, Telme," she told the two Rangers covering the storage unit entrance. They nodded and moved to set two ED's on the storage unit door. These were simple explosive devices with motion triggers, there only to keep their sixes covered while they... take care of business in the hidden room.

The fifth member of her Ranger unit, Scribbles, came up to Nayla. Something was softly whirring somewhere inside him.

"Secondary servos again?" Nayla asked, looking at where his left leg connected with his torso. The droid let out a wonderful simulation of a sigh. "I was told the replacement was brand new. It is increasingly obvious to me that it was salvaged."

"Well, we _are_ on a tight budget," Nayla said.

"It's being lied to that annoys," the droid said.

"It doesn't affect your performance?" Nayla asked. She didn't want him suddenly losing mobility during a firefight or, even worse, retreat.

"It's still far from reducing my mobility," the droid said.

"ED's set", Wee-Go called softly, as both he and Telme hustled up to Nayla. They all now turned to see Zynn standing in the short corridor, lights flashing from his handheld devices, doing whatever it was they did to deactivate or confuse the security devices.

It took them far longer to discover the right storage unit than Nayla had wanted it to. Almost twenty minutes instead of five, because their info was not as detailed as she had hoped it would be. Only the general area of the massive warehouse, not the exact storage unit. And when they finally did discover the storage unit that belonged to the Shonra Trading Company--which meant scanning the ID patch on each unit door, said unit doors coming by the dozens in each corridor in the labyrinthine warehouse complex--it took them even more time to find the hidden door inside the unit. Luckily the unit itself didn't have any additional security devices apart from those that were supposed to prevent the entrance being opened by anyone except authorized warehouse personnel or people who hired the unit--simple security devices that Zynn deactivated almost with disdain.

But the hidden door however, and the short corridor behind it and the door on the other side were the real deal. And with every passing second, Nayla was growing more and more tense. Someone could discover them: warehouse personnel or just someone on the way to their own storage unit. Or even people from Shonra Trading Company. Or the door they were getting ready to bust down could open and--well, no, that would just move their schedule up, not disrupt it.

"Ready," Zynn said softly but clearly, drew his gun and stepped to the side wall of the corridor.

"Move," Nayla said, and Wee-Go and Telme did so, stopping just a few steps from the far door and going down on one knee. Latura and Soval stood a little behind them, aiming at the door as well. Zynn nodded at Nayla, ready to press the button that would tell the door to open.

Nayla and Scribbles raised their weapons, stepped between Latura and Soval.

Nayla took a breath, swallowed and reached out. She was only several steps closer to the door than moments ago, but what she sensed from the other side was markedly stronger now. Terror of the children, the calm of their captors.

"Six targets at least," she said.

Zynn was nodding. "And at most?"

"Nine or ten," Nayla said.

"We had worse odds," Latura said.

"Better odds would be preferable," Scribbles said.

Nayla closed her eyes, concentrating harder. "The children are to the left of the door. Very close to each other." She pointed in their general direction. "The targets are to the right and straight ahead. They're relaxed."

"That's about to change," Zynn said.

"Just say when, LT," Telme said.

Lieutenant, Nayla thought. _The youngest of them is still years older than me. How the hell can I be their leader?!_ Being Force sensitive bumped her up the Ranger ranks faster than her field performance would warrant if she hadn't been blessed (cursed) by that invisible power that bound all living things together, but this only meant Nayla was _downright_ terrified during each and every field operation. But just like every time before, she pushed that fear back, because her Rangers needed her to do her best and more importantly, they were those children's only hope of escaping misery and death.

"Go," she simply said.

Zynn smirked and opened the door.

Blaster fire ensued, Nayla and her Rangers darting into the hidden room, taking the occupants by surprise. There were eight. Two fell before the door had fully opened, two more were shot down just as they raised their own weapons. The other four dove for cover and returned fire almost immediately.

Telme and Wee-Go stayed in the corridor, taking cover and shooting through the doorway. Latura and Soval turned over a large table two now dead mercenaries had been playing Pazaak on, knelt behind it and provided covering fire for Nayla and Scribbles as she and the droid moved towards a large metal cage. The children were inside, huddled in the very centre, completely terrified, eyes large as saucers. Through senses Nayla alone of her unit possessed and could never really explain to them, she felt the children's fear.

As her Rangers exchanged fire with the surviving mercenaries, who had regrouped on the far end of the hidden room, using ore crates as cover, Nayla examined the cage door. Maglocks, and powerful ones at that.

"Zynn," she called and he ran into the room, cursing as several blaster bolts scorched the air above him when he ducked.

"I should really teach you to pick them yourself," he grumbled as he worked on the locks, three of them, set one above the other.

A beeping sounded from Zynn's belt and before he said it, Nayla knew what it meant. "They triggered an alarm," Zynn said.

"Rangers, enemy reinforcements on their way," Nayla spoke into her comms bead. "Wee-Go, Telme, secure the retreat."

"Roger," was their brief response in her ear as the two Rangers ran back into the storage unit.

"There we go," Zynn said as the final maglock clanked open.

Blaster shots scored the wall behind Nayla.

"Two, up ahead," Zynn said, drawing his gun and firing as Nayla got down on one knee, taking cover behind the wide corner bar of the cage.

"They'll hit the children," Nayla breathed, looking for alternate cover but there was none nearby. The mercenaries were using a supporting pillar as cover, but were also firing single shots instead of bursts.

"No, I think they'll do all they can no to hit them," Zynn said, standing right behind her. "Which, sadly, makes this the best cover in the room now."

The mercenaries fired again, but they definitely did not seem very eager to do so. Nayla knew that this wouldn't last for long. It was a matter of seconds until they would reach the point where their desire to survive overrides their need to not damage their "cargo".

Zynn fired off several shots but didn't score a hit. The other two mercenaries had been sending out a steady stream of blaster fire towards Latura and Soval's position, both women calmly taking cover behind the overturned card table, waiting their turn.

"Children," Nayla called, looking between the bars at the tiny forms, "run, please."

"Allow me," Scribbles said, opening the cage door fully and leaning his impressive bulk half inside it. His large yellow photoreceptors' light was reflected in the eyes of children. So young, Nayla thought. _Younger than I was. World, how can these things happen?_

"Children, do not be afraid," Scribbles said. It didn't seem to work. "Come with us, we are here to save you."

The children didn't move, didn't seem to even breathe as they gaped at the droid.

"Oh, I forgot" Scribbles said and a moment later his photoreceptors glowed blue instead of yellow. "As I said, do not be afraid."

The children did not move, in fact, they clutched at each other more firmly now.

"Nayla," Zynn half sighed, half grumbled.

"Yes," she replied. "Scribbles, switch."

The droid took her position and opened fire on the pillar.

Nayla know knelt on one knee in front of the cage door. She looked into the wide eyes of children, felt the fear radiate off them like the heat of a burning building. Terrified eyes, confused, not able to understand what was happening nor why... But she could see herself in each face and because of that she could do what needed to be done. She had once been them, so now she became, for just a moment, someone else.

Feigning the calm of the old Jedi knight, she reached her hand out, looking straight at the children and repeated his words from long ago, doing her best to emulate the complete lack of urgency in his voice: "Come on. It's time to go."

She infused the words with all the serenity she could muster, trying to calm their minds while also trying to find that place inside them that just required the softest of nudges. It didn't work always but these days it worked more than when she had first started trying to do it.

And the universe was kind this day, because the children moved. On hands and knees they scrambled out of the cage, lining up beside her, all six of them, tiny and fragile.

"Cargo escaping!" someone shouted.

"Ah, _beshla_ ," Zynn growled. They all knew what the mercenaries would do now.

"Scribbles, cover!" Nayla shouted as she rolled towards Zynn. Scribbles had, with practiced motions and whirring more loudly now, passed by her and dropped to his knees. As he did so, the back plates of his torso popped up and then fanned out, like crude, rectangular wings. The droid, however, could never take flight with them but what he could was what he did now: shield the children from blaster bolts that began zapping between the bars of the cage.

" _Beshan_ monsters!" Zynn shouted and reached for his belt.

"No," Nayla said as she fired at the pillar, taking out one of the mercenaries. Zynn had stopped trying to pull a thermal detonator from his belt.

"They're far enough," he said.

"This room wasn't supposed to be here," Nayla said. "Those support pillars are there for a reason." She didn't want the room collapsing on them, even though she felt the same murderous urge Zynn was feeling. She had expected the mercenaries would open fully automatic fire on her and Zynn and Scribbles was supposed to simply protect the children from stray shots. But all the remaining mercenaries had begun firing _directly_ at the children. It had stunned her, but only for a moment.

Scribbles was still kneeling and had kept the children from scattering in sheer panic by gently but firmly embracing them with his long, thin arms. But the barrage was not only scoring the armor plates but also now tearing pieces off.

"I would like to remove myself from enemy line of fire," Scribbles said, calm but insistent. "But I cannot achieve a good enough grip to carry all the children."

Nayla had an idea. She grabbed the thermal detonator from Zynn's belt and tossed it. "Thermal!" she shouted as the device thumped on the floor near the pillar. The mercenary that was taking cover behind it made a run for his two surviving comrades behind the ore crate, who now disappeared behind said crate.

"Scribbles, out," Nayla said as she fired a short burst, killing the running mercenary. "Latura, Soval, advance!" she said and the two Rangers moved out of cover towards the ore crate.

 Scribbles was half-bent, corralling the children out of the room and Zynn ran to help him, casting a smirk at Nayla. "Nice move," he said. The thermal detonator lay on the floor. Since she did not press the trigger, it was just a small metal ball and nothing else. The mercenaries, however, could not have known that.

The two remaining mercenaries rose out of cover, firing on full auto. Latura shot one in the chest. Nayla dropped the other but not before he managed to hit Soval.

"Ranger down!" Latura called, kneeling next to Soval as Nayla ran to check the mercenaries were dead. They were, dead eyes staring at the ceiling. "Clear!" she called.

"I'm--aaa, don't touch it!" she heard as she turned, seeing Soval slap Latura's hand as the Ranger was checking her comrade's wounded shoulder.

"Thank Sintra for body armor, eh?" Latura asked, helping Soval get up.

"I'd prefer not to have been hit at all," Soval said.

"We take what Sintra gives," Latura said.

Soval grinned sourly. "You're still not selling me on your religion, friend."

"Wee-Go, Telme, status?" Nayla spoke into her comm bead.

"The corridor is still clear, no sign of enemy reinforcements," came the answer.

Zynn was back in the hidden room, one of his scanners in hand as Nayla, Latura and Soval approached the door. Nayla could see Scribbles in the storage unit, down on one knee, using a medical scanner on the children. Two operations ago some of the children had been tagged with subdermal trackers, which Nayla and her Rangers had had no idea about and which almost exposed the Ranger base of operations in the sector. Ever since, the Antarean Rangers were operating under the assumption that each subsequent rescue operation might turn into an ambush by the Shonra Trading Company--a cover for a secret organization set up by the Empire to discover, track and abduct Force sensitive children in the Outer Rim. For what purposes, the Antarean Rangers did not know, but considering their first hand experiences in and subsequent intelligence gathered on the Jedi Purge that had followed the Fall of the Republic, they did not even bother with attempting to find out. The matter was simple: if the Empire wanted Force sensitive children, the Rangers would do everything in their power to deny them each and every child they could.

"What is it?" Nayla asked Zynn.

"There must be another exit from this room," Zynn said. "Basic smuggler logic." His scanner emitted a muted drone. "I could be wrong," he said after a few moments but then the scanner chirped, "but I'm not." He smirked and ran up to a section of the wall not far from the now destroyed card table. He pressed what looked like just one of several pieces of rebar sticking out of the rough surface of the wall and there was a low hum as a part of the wall slid to the side, revealing a wide passage. A moment later lights blinked on and revealed the passage ended with an elevator pad.

"What if the reinforcements are coming that way?" Nayla mused.

"The pad is still down here," Zynn said. "Also, it obviously leads to the roof, which means our shuttle could pick us up there. We won't have to cross all that open terrain on the landing pad outside."

Nayla nodded. "And we avoid fighting in the corridors, with children in tow," she said.

He nodded, waiting for her to decide.

She did.

"Rangers, on me. We're taking the elevator. Wee-Go, Telme, did you remove the EDs?"

"Affirmative," she heard in her ear as her Rangers entered the hidden room. Scribbles had his "wings" retracted and it seemed he no longer needed to corral the children, they all kept very close to him, gazing at him with awe. A few steps away from Nayla, Zynn was picking up a comms unit from a dead mercenary's belt.

"Anything?" she asked as he listened in. He nodded. "It's scrambled but there's chatter. Don't have the time to crack it, unfortunately."

"We'll just assume there'll be more shooting," Nayla said, going for laconic even though he gut squirmed.

They filed into the passage and onto the platform as Zynn worked his slicer magic with the elevator controls.

"It goes all the way up," he said to Nayla. "The roof door opens automatically the moment the platform starts moving but I can override that, open it at the very last moment. Might give us a chance to take any potential hostiles up there by surprise."

Nayla nodde. "Do it."

"Yes, sir," Zynn said, his attention already on his handheld computer. The platform hummed and started rising on repulsor fields. Scribbles pulled the children closer to him as all the Rangers apart from Zynn had their weapons and eyes aimed at the slowly approaching ceiling.

Nayla switched her comms to the direct line with their shuttle. "Extraction, roof of northern warehouse section. Our ETA is less than one minute. Expect hostiles."

"Roger that, LT. Will clear them out for you if I can," the pilot's voice said.

Just a few meters from the ceiling, one of Zynn's devices chirped softly and he looked at Nayla with slight alarm in his eyes. "They're on the roof," he said. "I had my scanner set to detect signal strength."

"Scribbles, cover," Nayla said.

"Come on, children," Scribbles said, his photoreceptors still glowing blue for some reason. He spread his "wings" and knelt on one knee, with children huddling within his embrace. As they did so, the "wings" bent and curled forward, enveloping the children. But there were many holes in them and any protection they would provide would be extremely temporary.

The Rangers formed a circle around Scribbles and Zynn, weapons facing outward.

"LT, be advised, have engaged hostiles. Taking fire but they're distracted," heard Nayla in her earpiece.

"Open it," Nayla said as the ceiling was maybe a meter from her head.

The hidden door in the ceiling of the elevator shaft split down the middle, halves sliding into the side walls, the Rangers and their wards emerging onto the roof. The evening air was hot and buzzing with blaster fire as about half a dozen mercenaries exchanged fire with the Rangers' shuttle that was about twenty meters up in the air, hovering and moving sideways as the pilot tried to both avoid enemy fire and shoot as many mercenaries as possible. There were bodies on the roof as well, those mercenaries that the shuttle managed to take by surprise.

Some of the still living mercenaries turned towards Nayla's unit. Someone shouted something and several turned in the covers provided by heat and ventilation exhausts and opened fire on the Rangers.

"Zorna," Nayla said as she opened fire, "extract the kids, now!"

"Roger," the pilot responded and the shuttle banked hard, turning and settling to hover in the air right next to the edge of the rooftop, some ten meters away.

"Scribbles, Zynn, move them. Rest of you, covering fire!" she shouted as they all started moving, Nayla, Wee-Go, Telme, Soval and Latura firing as they moved backwards, doing full bursts, not even bothering to aim, simply spraying the blaster bolts in the enemy's general direction to keep them behind cover. It wouldn't work for long, Nayla knew, but it might work long enough.

Scribbles and Zynn had decided the children were either too slow or their legs too short, and Nayla saw Zynn grab two of the children, carry each under one arm, which allowed Scribbles to scoop up the rest in his own arms. Both Zynn and Scribbles made a mad dash for the shuttle.

"Launcher!" Telme shouted. Nayla saw it immediately, two mercenaries emerging from behind an exhaust some ten meters away, one of them with a large missile launcher on her shoulder.

"Wee-Go, Telme, take it out!" Nayla shouted as she pointed for Soval and Latura to take cover and keep firing on the main body of the mercenaries, who were now finally taking shots at Scribbles and Zynn but luckily missing. Wee-Go and Telme ran towards the missile launcher team, firing.

It happened fast. Telme managed a lucky shot on the run and killed the mercenary with the launcher. Her comrade immediately dropped to his knees, grabbed the launcher--and aimed it, awkwardly and hastily, at Wee-Go and Telme. There was a flash as the missile was fired and Nayla could see so clearly Wee-Go surging towards Telme, not so much pushing as bouncing the much smaller Ranger off himself and away from the target area.

The explosion forced Nayla to take cover, but she rose out of it immediately. Telme was still on the rooftop, stunned but already rising to his feet. Where Wee-Go had stood moments ago there was only a scorched, obliterated section of permacrete.

Someone, either Soval or Latura shot the mercenary with the missile launcher. Nayla was staring at where one of her Rangers laid down his life for his comrade, unable to think.

"LT, we have to move!" It was Latura, not so loud as insistent as she knelt beside her, firing at someone.

Nayla blinked and full awareness rushed back in. She shook her head and started calling out order. "Telme, on me. Cover him. Shuttle, status?"

"Little ones all aboard, Scribbles and Zynn as well."

Telme ran into their cover, panting and pale. Nayla said, "Latura, Telme, run for the shuttle. Soval and I will cover you."

The Rangers obeyed but as Nayla rose out of cover to fire, she saw the mercenaries were pressing forward, had divided into pairs and were running from cover to cover, hoping to close the distance and get a better shot.

Still, there was nothing for it now. And if she and Soval couldn't reach the shuttle, she'd order it to retreat and leave them there. Saving the children was their top priority.

"LT, time to leave," she heard Zynn's voice in her ear. "More hostiles arriving on the roof, plus at least three aircraft approaching."

"Go," Nayla said to Soval, who broke into a run. After several steps she stopped, turned and fired, allowing Nayla to run past her, then herself stop after a few steps, turn and fire at the mercenaries. They kept it up, with Latura and Telme firing from the shuttle's open side door as well.

"Hostiles, two o'clock!" Nayla heard in her ear. She saw them, five mercenaries emerging from behind a stack of exhausts, opening fire.

"Soval, keep running," she ordered, knelt and sprayed blaster fire in the mercenaries' direction, scattering them. She kept it up, feeling the weapon heat up in her hands, hearing the insistent sound of a power pack nearing depletion.

"LT, go, go!" someone shouted behind her. She turned and ran for the shuttle as Latura, Soval and Telme provided cover fire. Blaster bolts scorched the permacrete around her, several shots missing her by a hair's breadth. She felt the heat of them, but the shuttle was so close, ten steps, five. She jumped, landed just inside the shuttle.

As she turned, a blaster bolt seared the ceiling above her as the shuttle started rising away from the roof. Latura was pushing the side door closed.

Suddenly, Telme was in front of Nayla, looking her in the eyes, for some reason seeming confused. He leaned forward and then was on his knees, head slumped against her belly. The shuttle door slammed shut as the craft tilted and the pilot put on full speed.

"Telme?" Nayla said, looking at the Ranger on the floor. Latura and Soval stared at the body as well.

"LT," Zynn said, approaching Nayla and pointing at the side of his head. "You need to let me treat that."

Nayla looked at him, confused. She reached up and felt her temple. It was hot and it hurt. A blaster bolt had grazed her. Just a centimeter to the left and... She wouldn't have even know what had happened.

"I--I think he saw it coming, LT," Soval said to Nayla as Latura turned the dead Ranger on his back, closing his eyes, murmuring something. "He was next to me and then he just leapt in front of you."

Zynn guided Nayla to a seat, a medikit already in his hands.

"They were Rangers," he told her in a low voice as he treated her wound. "This is what we do. None of us expect to die of old age."

Nayla blinked. "I--I..."

She'd seen Rangers die before, too many times. Friends, brothers and sisters in arms, team members. But this was the first time she'd lost someone under her command.

Zynn was nodding as he sprayed the burn with something cool and soothing. "I know, LT. I've been where you are now. It never gets easy. But you also got the rest of us out and we saved the kids. It's a win. It doesn't feel like it, but it is."

Latura and Soval had already moved Telme's body to the back of the shuttle, covered it with a blanket. She saw Scribbles leave the shuttle's tiny medbay.

"The children were in the medbay, they didn't see it," the droid said.

"Er, LT," the pilot called from the cockpit, "air traffic control is shouting at me for leaving atmo without a filed flight plan. I take it I'm clear to jump to hyperspeed ASAP?"

"Yes," Nayla called. "Are we being pursued?"

"The merc aircraft have stayed back at the warehouse," the pilot said.

"Probably don't want to draw more attention by getting into an aerial dogfight," Zynn said. "There," he said, applying a patch over the burn on Nayla's temple. "No bacta so I'm afraid it might leave a scar but--"

"Let it," Nayla said. The shock had slowly retreated from her and all was flowing back into focus.

Wee-Go dead. Telme dead. Two Rangers lost, when there were so precious few to begin with. But Zynn was right and she knew what she had to do.

She looked at Soval and Latura, sitting across the shuttle from her, talking in low voices, tears in their eyes. Scribbles was standing just a few steps from Nayla, looking at her. Zynn was now sitting next to her.

"Orders, LT?" Zynn asked.

Nayla looked at the medbay, saw a head peek out, then hastily pull back.

"Let's get them some food and water," she said, rising.

As Nayla approached the medbay, several pairs of children's eyes gazed at her. There were many emotions in them but one was now gone and it was the anchor she grabbed hold of.

They were no longer afraid.

 

**The End**

 

 

 


End file.
